Well, she's living a new life in a new state that's worlds away from what you knew all those years ago. At the same time, she's still the same person with the same love of bento boxes, baking and fun kid projects. You won't find her being too political these days, though she's still super passionate about home birth, breastfeeding and leaving little boys intact.

But you will find her sharing life with three kids (Can you believe Elnora is 7 and Emmitt is 5?...and there's a new one in the mix as well!) and her new husband Matt in the hills of Western Pennsylvania.

It's been a long time, but if you still pop by every now and then or you've never cleared The Lactivist from your RSS feed it the hopes something might pop up again, here's your chance.

If you are anything like me, you never, ever, EVER had problems with stretch marks until you had babies. Of course if you're like me you also got through at least one pregnancy thinking you were in pretty good shape. I didn't have much of a problem with stretch marks after Nora, mostly because she seemed to fill up my "insides" instead of stretching me outward. (I was a good 32+ weeks pregnant before I really looked it...)

Then I got pregnant with Emmitt and almost overnight became a walking whale. I was carrying around nine and a half pounds of baby and it looked like it. I was monstrous and it happened overnight. Along with all that stretching came...well, stretch marks. Bright red stretch marks.

Blech.

(The good news is, even the stretch marks that start out bright red or purple tend to fade over time.)

Now, as annoying as they are, it's not like I've exactly gotten back into bikini shape in the last two years, so I havent' worried so much about them. That said, I've known my fair share of moms who were both desperate to avoid and to eliminate the stretch marks that often come with pregnancy.

So I did a little hunting...and just in case you want to look them over yourself, here are some of the more popular stretch mark removal creams to check out online.

Revitol claims to increase the production of collagen and elastin in the epidermis and says that helps to both prevent and reduce the appearance of stretch marks. They suggest you being using it during your pregnancy and then use it after pregnancy to help help remove stretch marks. So what's in it? According to the Revitol web site, their stretch mark removal cream is made up of squalene oil, vitamin E, vitamin A, vitamin D3 as well as aloe vera and grapefruit seed extracts.

It should be noted that the folks at Revitol never claim to remove your stretch marks (which is good, because most doctors will tell you it's pretty much impossible to remove them without laser surgery), they simply claim

I'd be a little more leery of the stretch mark cream sold on this site than of the Revitol reduction cream, but that's mostly because their web site tries to claim they WILL make your stretch marks vanish. It's mostly made up of cocoa butter, wheat germ oil and lanolin. On the plus side, it's not tested on animals and they claim they offer a money back guarantee if you aren't happy with it.

Trilastin claims you'll start to see a difference in a matter of weeks and also offers a money back guarantee. I can't find much on the site in way of ingredients, though it claims to be 100% natural and totally safe to use while you are pregnant or breastfeeding. It was also featured on the Tyra Banks show earlier this year if that type of thing sways you.

In an ideal world, none of us would ever have to pick up a breast pump or express milk. Babies would always get it straight from the tap. In the real world, due to things like travel, latch issues, jobs and the need for temporary escape...babies often end up drinking expressed and stored breast milk.

Now, any mom who has ever pumped milk knows how much work it is. The last thing we want to have happen to that hard earned milk is to have it go bad, or worse yet, have the breast milk storage bag in the freezer spring a leak.

That's why breast milk storage bags were one of those things I never skimped on. I tried out quite a few and one of my favorites were the ones from Lansinoh. (I'm a fairly big Lansinoh fan anyway, having been won over early on in the hospital with Lansinoh brand lanolin.)

Back in the days when I was exclusively pumping for Elnora and saving milk for the milk bank, I used to go through breast milk storage bags like crazy. I tried a ton of different brands and my favorite by far were the Lansinoh Breastmilk Storage Bags.

They hold six ounces, which is on the high end of the scale space wise and they've got a great bag shape that let's you freeze them flat, even if they're pretty full. (Tip: If you lay your breastmilk bags flat on their side when you put them in the freezer, they free that way and you can stack them more easily.)